Contrabass Digest

2002-06-20

Dear Friends:
A friend & Potomac Brass Quintet (of Virginia) colleague who plays tuba
& bass trombone had the privilege, back when he was a Harvard graduate
student, of playing a solo concerto on the university's immense sub-contrabass
tuba, a real museum piece that was seldom played & only then for special
occasions. In practice while working up the solo, he found that the humongous
tuba responded radically differently from any tuba he had ever played before,
even to the extent that he had to make up alternate fingerings as he went
along. Plus its sound was unfocused & stuffy, as he might have expected
from such an outsized instrument. But he's a good player & before too
long was able to work up the solo. He chalked up the instrument's funny response
& oddball fingerings to its super size. The whole time he was practicing
on the extra-big tuba, it was in its accustomed upright position right where
it was kept in storage backstage, because it was way too hefty to move around
unnecessarily & without help. At dress rehearsal for the performance,
some helpers joined in moving the beast to center stage, & while they
were at it they discovered & removed from inside the bell of the big
tuba a roll of carpet that had been placed there for some unknown reason.
My friend the soloist said that with the rug taken out, the venerable tuba
sounded lots better, blew much freer, & played OK using conventional
fingerings.
-- Alan Cole, rank amateur
McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

That reminds me of a true story about my bari sax playing out of tune and
funny on some lower notes for a few months in our swing band. One day, while
playing in the band, I tipped up my stovepipe horn to check some springs
and pads for proper sealing, and I heard a clunking sound as I swung up the
horn for inspection. Tipping it upside down caused a long forgotten spare
bari sax mouthpiece to drop out of the bell ! After that, it played
in tune (well, you know, sort of) and didn't do as many strange things.

Now, I look down the "spittoon end" more often and see if the green parasitic
fungi are doing well without disturbance. LOL Hey, it was factory
cleaned when built back in 1956 ! also was factory tuned ! Seriously, I do
twist a 30" rag, with a knot on the end, down the U-neck after each gig or
practice, and then wash out the mouthpiece(s) and leadpipe. The narrow pipe
parts count most in the sound quality, I think. The rag gets washed out when
it turns a nice, proper, green color, about once per year.

If more liberals get put into office, I will probably have to fill out an
official "Environ-non-mental Impact Statement" on both air quality and wetlands
before I can play a gig.

Auction results have been posted for the
Vichy auction
. Some of the prices realized were surprising, and I'll keep the results
in mind for December 2nd, although there's no guarantee that things will
go the same way bidding wise at that time.
The Mullerphone was estimated at 10,000 Euro and went instead for 15,000.
The Sarrusophones
went for over their estimates, except for the contrabass, which went for
2, 700 Euro instead of its estimated 3000! As I mentioned before, the
metal Selmer bass clarinet that captured my imagination was estimated at
800 Euro, and I bid 1156 Euro and it went for an astonishing 3,500 Euro,
and I was also shocked to see that a "petite clarinette" (Eb? C?) also made
by Selmer in metal was estimated at 1,000 Euro, which I thought was rather
high, but wound up going for 4,200 Euro!!! Obviously, there's a Selmer
collector in the bidding
audience!
After reading Debbie's post about her "very used"
Contrabass clarinet
, I think it's a good thing I didn't win the metal Selmer bass - it
looks like I might need the money to repair the Contra Alto clarinet I'm
getting from the same eBay auction vendor that Debbie's came from !
;)
I'll let you know when it arrives...
Steven

At 10:17 PM 6/20/2002 +0200, you wrote:
> > Here are the auction results (thanks for sending me the link, Steven!)
for
> > a number of the horns recently sold in Vichy (all prices in euros):
> >
>And the currency is?

> At 10:17 PM 6/20/2002 +0200, you wrote:
>>> Here are the auction results (thanks for sending me the link,
Steven!) for
>>> a number of the horns recently sold in Vichy (all prices in
euros):
>> And the currency is?
>
> Euros.

Sorrissimo!

But we natives have skipped the text reading for the symbol!

=E2=82=AC (which probably comes out very differently on most monitors)

Klaus

who is not living in a €-country, but who has experienced the simplicities
in dealing with such countries.

Great story. I seem to remember having a few of those stories a while
ago on this list. I myself have one. To make it short, I pulled
out some of my own keys on a string from the HS's Bari my freshman year.
Yes, I had lost my keys. Yes, the horn played better. I felt
(and still feel) pretty damn stupid about that.

Spencer

>Dear Friends:
***
>beast to center stage, & while they were at it they discovered &
removed
>from inside the bell of the big tuba a roll of carpet that had been placed
>there for some unknown reason. My friend the soloist said that with the
rug
>taken out, the venerable tuba sounded lots better, blew much freer, &
>played OK using conventional fingerings.
>-- Alan Cole, rank amateur
>McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

_________________________________________________________________
Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
http://www.hotmail.com